Death to a Playoff: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is pretty impressive in the way that it takes quotes out of context and makes a big, and simple, math error. The entire chapter, like much of the book, is littered with quotes from conference commissioners or school presidents about how a playoff will destroy the bowl games and system. While I enjoy the bowl games myself, I will say that I think there are too many, but to think that the authors' playoff proposal will not eliminate ANY bowls as they repeatedly claim, is simply fiction.

A Geography-based, NFL style playoff is wrong

College Football Cafeteria continues to stoke the fire and promote an inferior NFL-type playoff system where teams make the playoffs based on the city in which they play and where regular season results mean very little. Geography is a key factor in determining who makes the playoffs in the NFL, and on field performance is secondary. How else do you explain situations like this year where a 7-9 team makes the playoffs while two 10-6 teams don't (nor does an 8-8 team) or 2008 where an 8-8 team gets in and an 11-5 team stays home. The reason is geography, and in the current system that college football uses, geography is not a factor. Results are, and those results, by the way, happened on the field. There is no question that the BCS is demanding system, but because of that, it is just. Because the BCS is strict with invites to its championship game, I can say without a doubt that the 2 team playoff currently employed by the BCS gives a more accurate reflection of the season's best team than the NFL's playoff system and Super Bowl Champion.

Death to a Playoff: Chapter 6

The chapter titled “Presidential Powers” touches on 2 objections to most playoff scenarios: academic impact for the student-athletes and economic impact of bowl game host cities. The academic impact argument is a very common one while the economic impact argument is not made quite as often. The authors admittedly do a good job of addressing these hollow arguments, but the impact of this chapter is not as strong as others because the arguments themselves are pretty weak. Punching holes through a weak argument is not difficult, nor does it do a lot to advance your cause, but they do address anti-playoff arguments that are commonly made, so I understand the reason for their inclusion.

Death to a Playoff: Chapters 4 and 5

Chapters 4 and 5 are the meat of the book. These chapters about bowl games are worth the cover price by themselves. The authors dig up so much valuable information about bowl games, payouts, and the bowl game leaders and present it so effectively that it really got my blood boiling. Simply astonishing. They make loose connections to how these things are related to the BCS and how the BCS is the cause of such malfeasance, but they are indirect at best and have been happening since before the BCS existed. If you read only 2 chapters in Death to the BCS, read these!